Who would have guessed that vasectomies were a seasonal business. I used to work in retail where marketing campaigns tried to incorporate seasonal promotions, but I have to admit, it was surprising to hear that such a medical operation could be promoted in the same way. Offices are seeing an increase of 50% in appointments for the first week of March Madness!
It makes sense… its a perfect schedule the operation to maximizes recovery time (3 days on the couch) while giving an excuse to watch crucial daytime basketball and have a decent excuse to get time off work
Ten reasons for getting a Vasectomy during March Madness according to the advertisement.
1. Extended office hours during games
2. Continuous ESPN coverage in the lobby
3. FREE snacks while waiting
4. Office is less crowded than a sports bar
5. Complimentary recovery kid
6. Doctors orders – 3 days on the couch
7. Excuse to stay in bathrobe all day
8. Keep Austin Weird – not overpopulated
9. You’ll be ready to love in the post season
10. It’s HIP to get SNIPPED (wow)
This is probably the best execution of a marketing campaign in March Madness I have seen, next to the Pizza Hut/NCAA/Bookit I remember from 4th grade. I just hope March Madness is not the only reason some of these fans are going in to get snipped…
A study of our European ancestors may propose that ancient cave women couldn’t resist the sex appeal of the innovators of their time.
Looking at genetic patterns in Europeans, scientists see evidence that women from hunter/gatherer societies left their men and started procreating with the innovative farmers of their day. Although it may be difficult to envision farmers as “innovators” amid our current society cluttered with self proclaimed social media guru’s, scientists who have technology to clone you, and engineers who can design gadgets that either can make our lives easier or miserable, ancient farmers spread a disruptive technology that changed the way people lived. They also probably really pissed off the hunters and gathers, who’s genes faded throughout the centuries following the loss of their lady friends.
Who are the “farmers” and “hunters and gatherer’s” of today’s society?
Times are certainly changing. Recent reports by the Pew Research Center indicate that more women are becoming sugar mama’s in our society. In the 60′s it was normal for a woman to be fired once they got married. In 2007, it was reported that 22% of women in the US made more money than their husbands. When looking at education of married couples, 53% of the couple had the same level of education, In 28% of the couples, the wives had higher education compared with 19% of the couples with men having more education.
I knew this was coming….I saw it coming last year when my land lady brought a homeless person into our house, and he spent 12 of the 24 hours of the day facebooking. I admit, it was a bit embarrassing that he had more facebook friends than I did. Shortly after finding an exit to Thailand, he released a series of hilarious facebook videos of him singing justin timberlake songs…no joke.
Sites such as: Begslist, CyberBeg and DonateMoney2me.com all aim to give panhandlers a forum to beg for money. Some of the sites, ironically charge up to $45 a month to be a member, but according to NPR, some of the appeals are very “heart wrenching.”
The problem I have with this is that there are enough of internet scams going on, and these forums just provide a new venue for these crooks. Living in Venice, I deal with homeless people daily, and fortunately they all realized my modest wealth, and no longer as me for money. But the truth is, I have a personal bias against giving homeless people money. One particular homeless man in SF swindled my roommate into helping him out, only to steal my 2 week old laptop. Either him, or the dozens of people that have bought or sold the laptop since, could be using it for begging on these sites.
However, for the hardworking families that have been hit the hardest by the economic crisis, perhaps some good can come out of this. It is a bit more private, and less degrading than panhandling on the street. Personally, I would prefer to donate money (if I had any) to a site more like Kiva, that gives microloans for people trying to start a business, however most of these sites help people in foreign countries. Helping American people keep their houses and buy their childrens books are very noble ideas too.
Just as long as its a scam. At least they already have computers, and won’t try to steal mine again.
-Hyderbadass
Over in India, negotiations and bargaining have always been a part of local culture. Bollywood is no different. Indian movie producers and distributors are playing “hardball” with big theatre chains, refusing to release any new movies unless they get half of ticket sales revenue (during the first month of the release.) The industry has been suffering in recent months, and producers are having a tough time getting financing for new movies. This slum-dog-millionare-badass hasn’t seen a good Bollywood movie since I was in Hyderabad, and is very disappointed to hear about the cinematic slump in Bollywood. Hopefully both sides can reach an agreement.
-Jason
A leading dating site has found its match. This recession has helped Match.com realize a 26% growth in membership from last year. Existing users are also using the site more often. It makes sense, online dating is probably cheaper and more efficient than offline. People can screen and filter each other out, avoiding disaster dates and interpersonal encounters that cost money.
Some friends of mine started a dating site in Chicago that is blowing up, called CrushMe.com. They are Michigan entrepreneurs, MSU alumni, and have a fresh approach at online dating. Rather than focusing on the compatibility testing and long profile descriptions, its a site based on pictures. The tagline is “it all starts with a look.” Check it out. They are always throwing parties around in the windy city.
If you read part 1 of this blog, you would have certainly heard about my beloved Tata Indica that transported me around the dreadful streets of Hyderabad. Satyam drove it like a champ, and it played an instrumental role in my adventures. If you want a Tata for yourself, you no longer need to go to Hyderabad, or anywhere else in India for that matter. The Tata Nano might start selling in the US in 2011. It is the world’s cheapest car, selling for a mere $2500, allowing many Indians to own a car for the first time. Check back in 2 years to see if the imports come with a Satyam-like driver.
-Jason
I have seen bikes used for charging cellphones while attending a music festival in the desert at Coachella, and I have seen knifes being sharpened in India with energy generated from the same pedaling action, but today I have heard about technology being developed that would recharge mobile phones simply by the motion of walking. For a man who is notorious for running out of batteries on my cell phone in the worst times, such as downtown Chicago an hour before having to meet my ride back home to Kalamazoo, this is the technology I have been dreaming about.
I am a big fan of carrot and apple juice, and it has become a daily beverage choice for me out here, as I can get it made fresh at one of the many street juice vendors for under 50 cents. After being cheated a few times at local restaurants, Satyam volunteered to pick up my takeaway orders for me at places I am not sure about. While heading to the office one day, we stopped by a juicer and I told Satyam to get a carrot/apple juice. 10 minutes later he came back with a juice that resembled nothing close to the orange color or texture of the vegetable juice. Instead he brought one of the worst tasting, over sweetened drinks I have had in my life. I drank it out of guilt, but nearly puked afterwards. I asked him if he was sure if it was “carrot juice” 2 times and he smiled and said “sir, I am sure of it”
Well, needless to say, I held of on such juice orders for a few weeks, and the mystery drink that I had that day was not mentioned. This week the story came out. I came to the car from the gym with a carrot juice, and decided to show him what it looked like. He saw it, at once started laughing. He then admitted that he thought I said “Curd Juice.” (We still have issues with pronunciation)
The juicer was extremely confused why anyone would order curd juice. (Curd is a yogurt substance south Indians eat with rice daily to conclude every meal) Satyam has actually taken the trouble to buy the curd separately from a different store, and custom order my juice. He is really silly sometimes. For anyone who hasn’t tried Curd and Apple juice…you are best off avoiding it altogether.
-Jason
After the booze cruise, I took a few days of seclusion to do something completely random. I left the dust filled city and spent the day in the wild. I left Hyderabad at 4am for the temple of Lord Shiva in Srisailam and had no idea was to be in store for me. All I knew was that I had my trusted friends, Sainik and Sumpath, who we call Pilot (he is a pilot) at my side to experience this adventure.
Hours earlier, I was doing the booze cruise, getting back in touch with a side of me I thought I left in NYC, but before the sun could rise, I remembered where I was, and had a thrill of the path I was heading on. I have never spent more than a few hours at a time in a car in India, so this 6 hour trip really put me in my place. There was no more need for AC, as we were cruising with the windows down at a hot pace of 55mph, by far the fastest I have gone in a car here. I have no idea why Indian highways are full of speedbumps, or why the roads don’t give warning when approaching one.
The original plan was to leave the night before and not drive at 5am, but we found out that a 3 hour strip of the road is closed down after 6pm every day. Why would a major highway from one of the largest cities in the world to such a holy place visited by thousands of pilgrims shut down after sunset? Any guesses?
How about Tigers, Elephants, Sloth Bears, and tribals -yes, vicious tribals. Communist ones.
This week I made my way into the back country of India, the jungle. My friend Jake Thayer once nicknamed me Mowgli on a camping trip in Michigan, after I climbed a tree, and swung from a hose ties to it into a lake we were canoeing on. The name sort of just stuck with our friends, and though some might be offended by such a name, I sort of took pride in it, as I used to watch The Jungle book daily between the ages of 4-7.
Similar to the book, the Indian Jungle has a sense of mystery and uncertainty to it. I couldn’t help but let my mind imagine how many dangers presently lay in store for me. I must say, that the thought of it it is a bit of a natural high. We jumped off the main road when we saw our first tiger. This 30 footer symbolized the entrance of a road that would eventually take us into the deepest part of the jungle any man had gone before. (at least in my mind) I grabbed my battery-deprived camera, took a picture with the animal statue, hoped it was the closest I would get to the real thing, and jumped into the the SUV cleverly named “Tiger Patrol.”
As we speed deeper and deeper away from the Tata Indica, and into land never traveled before by a westerner I started seeing monkey’s all over the place. These monkey’s look a bit sick, red faced, shameless, and not as smart as the monkey’s I hear about. They will steal your watch if you aren’t careful though. After about 10 minutes of staring into the trees, hoping to see some orange, we came across another SUV. This vehicle had been abandoned for several hours. I looked around for traces of human life, a turban or some chuppels (sandals) at least but found nothing of the sort. Of course, it was well explained to the group in Telegu that the vehicle ran out of gas the night before, and the passengers had to walk 3 miles in the Jungle, right at the 6pm closing time to get back to the road. With God’s good graces, Shere khan did not have these people for dinner, and they survived. We grabbed a tank of water from the car and continued our conquest.
I have heard of dangerous tribals, who decide toreject civilian life, and organize terrorist attacks that kill tourists. They run highly profitable smuggling businesses and constantly plot to take over Indian politics. These people are frequently sent to their maker by the many snakes and predators in the jungle. We rode by the Nazim’s hunting getaway house and soon made it to the most beautiful view in Andra Pradesh. We were standing next to a house that looked like an ancient artifact of the region, looking out at miles of jungle thousands of feet below us.
Then I noticed our vehicle was no where in site. Perhaps the driver felt the obligation to run an errand while I was on a Tiger Safari, leaving me and my friends out to dry if we were lucky enough to see what we had come to see. The only thing that helped our chances was that there were only 6 known tigers in the region. The tiger population here is unfortunately nearly extinct.
We played around this ruined house for a while, waiting for the driver to return. I felt more secure being 40 ft in the air, without a ledge or sturdy floors than I did on the ground with the reptiles and man eating cats below me. I did get weak in the knees at one point, and decided it was best to avoid such a silly fatality, and get back down to earth and take my chances with nature. Nature vs Nurture, Nature always wins. (Wedding Crashers)
Finally the car showed up, and we got in. My Telegu tour guide told us that the house used to be a guest house for tourists, because of the beautiful view, but the local tribals decided to bomb it only 3 years ago. I was shocked. These people were still around, and I am just glad I didn’t do anything to draw their attention today.
Unfortunately/Fortunately The ride back was tiger-less. We did see more monkey’s and even a group of deer, who had no fear of human interaction. Eventually made it to the temple. It is customary to remove shoes and I burned the most of the nerves off my feet during the 4k walk on black pavement to get there from the car. I was a bit ticked off to see that I was one of the few people to remove my shoes, as there was a local business that stored your shoes for you when you went inside the temple. The walk back proved to be worse, but I refused a piggy back ride from my 130lb driver.
The temple was fascinating, a lot of things going on. Long lines – you can’t escape crowds in India unless you decide to take mother nature on a date. The temple was built in the 1500′s, part of it was completely made of gold, and people were offering all of their hair on their head to the Lord Shiva in prayer. I have never seen so many bald men and women in one place. I was asked to shave my head, but I didn’t think it would be a good look for me at this point of my life. Apparently the hair collected at this temple, and others especially in Tirupati is a huge business for trade with Europe and the West. The temple in Tirupati collects a ridiculous amount of money ($300 million per year) through offerings made by the 20 million hindu pilgrims. For a business with very little overhead, its surprisingly a global phenomenon, started in the 60′s. The money is used for public affairs, people in Tirupati get a free place to stay for one night on their trip.
My first trip to a Hindu temple was met with a violent encounter. 2 Men got in a fight in the temple over their spot in line, starting hitting and pushing each other. I don’t understand everyone’s hurry. I live by the words in the movie Goodfella’s : “Pauli might have moved slow, but that was just because Pauli didn’t have to move for anyone.
I really enjoyed the beauty of India today, risked my neck, kept my hair and spent some time with the guys, who just enjoy their religious get aways from time to time. Beats the cement jungle any day.
-Mowgli
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